Tropic of Cancer - Miller, Henry [48]
"What did you expect me to say? I said: 'How could anyone ever grow tired of you?' "
And then he describes to me what happened after that, how he bent down and kissed her breasts, and how, after he had kissed them fervidly, he stuffed them back into her corsage, or whatever it is they call these things. And after that another coupe of champagne.
Around midnight the garçon arrives with beer and sandwiches – caviar sandwiches. And all the while, so he says, he has been dying to take a leak. He had one hard on, but it faded out. All the while his bladder is fit to burst, but he imagines, the cute little prick that he is, that the situation calls for delicacy.
At one-thirty she's for hiring a carriage and driving through the Bois. He has only one thought in his headhow to take a leak? "I love you… I adore you," he says. "I'll go anywhere you say – Istanbul, Singapore, Honolulu. Only I must go now… It's getting late."
He tells me all this in his dirty little room, with the sun pouring in and the birds chirping away like mad. I don't yet know whether she was beautiful or not. He doesn't know himself, the imbecile. He rather thinks she wasn't. The room was dark and then there was the champagne and his nerves all frazzled.
"But you ought to know something about her – if this isn't all a goddamned lie!"
"Wait a minute," he says. "Wait… let me think! No, she wasn't beautiful. I'm sure of that now. She had a streak of gray hair over her forehead… I remember that. But that wouldn't be so bad – I had almost forgotten it you see. No, it was her arms – they were thin… they were thin and brittle." He begins to pace back and forth. – Suddenly he stops dead. "If she were only ten years younger!" he exclaims. "If she were ten years younger I might overlook the streak of gray hair… and even the brittle arms. Buc she's too old. You see, with a cunt like that every year counts now. She won't be just one year older next year – she'll be ten years older. Another year hence and she'll be twenty years older. And I'll be getting younger looking all the time – at least for another five years…"
"But how did it end?" I interrupt.
"That's just it… it didn't end. I promised to see her Tuesday around five o'clock. That's bad, you know! There were lines in her face which will look much worse in daylight. I suppose she wants me to fuck her Tuesday. Fucking in the daytime – you don't do it with a cunt like that. Especially in a hotel like that. I'd rather do it on my night off… but Tuesday's not my night off. And that's not all. I promised her a letter in the meantime. How am I going to write her a letter now? I haven't anything to say… Shit! If only she were ten years younger. Do you think I should go with her… to Borneo or wherever it is she wants to take me? What would I do with a rich cunt like that on my hands? I don't know how to shoot. I am afraid of guns and all that sort of thing. Besides, she'll be wanting me to fuck her night and day… nothing but hunting and fucking all the time… I can't do it!"
"Maybe it won't be so bad as you think. She'll buy you ties and all sorts of things…"
"Maybe you'll come along with us, eh? I told her all about you…"
"Did you tell her I was poor? Did you tell her I needed things?"
"I told her everything. Shit, everything would be fine, if she were just a few years younger. She said she was turning forty. That means fifty or sixty. It's like fucking your own mother… you can't do it… it's impossible."
"But she must have had some attractiveness… you were kissing her breasts, you said."
"Kissing her breasts – what's that? Besides it was dark, I'm telling you."
Putting on his pants a button falls off. "Look at that will you. It's falling apart, the goddamned suit. I've worn it for seven years now… I never paid for it either. It was a good suit once, but it stinks now. And that cunt would buy me suits too, all I wanted most likely. But that's what I don't like, having a woman shell out for me. I never did that in my life. That's your idea.